<< Prev Page 2 of 3 Next >> On April 1st of 1982, Lancia had produced sufficient 'Stradales' for the 037 to be homologated as a Group B car. It debuted that very day in a local Italian rally but an engine issue prompted one car to retire while a gearbox failure took the other car out. Reliability issues continued to dog the new Lancia and the first victory was not scored until August when Teodoro Peruggini won an Italian hill climb. During the remainder of the season, the Lancia 037 was only fielded in select events but several victories in national events in Italy and England were scored. An international win, however, still eluded to fast but fragile Lancia.
At the start of the 1983 season, most of the bugs had clearly been ironed out as the Martini Racing works team scored a one-two victory in the season opening and very prestigious Monte Carlo Rally. Walter Röhrl took the car's first World Rally Championship win, ahead of team-mate Marku Alen. In the following eleven WRC rounds, the 037 was driven to a further four victories, which was sufficient for Lancia to be crowned Manufacturers' Champion. In the Drivers' standings, Röhrl and Alen were second and third behind Audi's Hannu Mikkola, who had scored four wins in his Audi Quattro.
The Group B rules also accommodated for an evolution version of the car once the first 200 examples were produced. For homologation purposes, only 25 of these 'Evo' cars had to be produced. Lancia launched their 037 Evo at the start of the 1984 season. The most significant difference was a slight rise in displacement to just over 2.1 litres, which still qualified the car for the 3,000 class but also boosted the power to 325 bhp. Further changes included a slight rise in supercharger boost, the elimination of the rear bumper and smaller, non ventilated discs were also homologated specifically for snowed out stages. << Prev Page 2 of 3 Next >>
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On April 1st of 1982, Lancia had produced sufficient 'Stradales' for the 037 to be homologated as a Group B car. It debuted that very day in a local Italian rally but an engine issue prompted one car to retire while a gearbox failure took the other car out. Reliability issues continued to dog the new Lancia and the first victory was not scored until August when Teodoro Peruggini won an Italian hill climb. During the remainder of the season, the Lancia 037 was only fielded in select events but several victories in national events in Italy and England were scored. An international win, however, still eluded to fast but fragile Lancia.